Processors handling multi-class traffic typically alternate between serving a particular class of traffic and performing other tasks, e.g., secondary service tasks or routine maintenance. The stochastic behavior of such systems is modeled by a newly introduced class of Bernoulli GI/G/1 vacation models. For this model, when a vacation is completed and customers are present, a customer is served. When a customer has just been served and other customers are present, the server accepts a customer with fixed probability p or commences a vacation of prespecified random duration with probability 1 – p. Whenever no customers are present, a vacation is taken. When p = 0 or p = 1 this schedule reduces to the previously introduced single service schedule and the exhaustive service schedule, respectively. An analysis of all three schedules on a state space incorporating server vacations is presented using simple methods in the complex plane. It is shown that the recent decomposition results for exhaustive service extend to the more general class of Bernoulli schedules.
